The current state of Overwatch’s competitive meta has caused a world of grief for one voice actress.
High-level Overwatch play has been in a bit of a slog for the last few months. Without diving too deep into it, the current meta, GOATS, centres around teams formed half of tank characters - able to take huge amounts of damage - with the other half made up of supporting heroes who can push health pools even higher.
As a tanky support character, Swedish squire Brigitte has been at the centre of many fans’ concerns - naturally, this means gamers are mad at a woman online who had no involvement in Brigitte’s design or balance.
Matilda Smedius, who provides a voice for Brigitte, first shared info on the harassment she’d been receiving over the character through Twitter last week.
I know I shouldn’t spend any time on people like this, especially when 99.999999% of all my interactions with people online are super positive and supportive (i love you all so much ❤️), but it just makes me so confused as to why someone would send me this kind of message. pic.twitter.com/SQp2K0mZf5
— Matilda Smedius (@MSmedius) February 22, 2019
That message was followed up a week later through a video on YouTube, where Smedius thanks those who replied in support of her earlier tweet. But she also revealed that the harassment only continued.
“I was just kind of fed up with those messages popping up all the time,” said Smedius. “I don’t understand why someone would write that. I don’t understand why people hashtag #DeleteBrig on my pictures or call me fat. I don’t understand the point.
“The message I uploaded on Twitter wasn’t worse than anything else. I’ve seen worse. Way worse. But it caught my eye somehow. It’s just ridiculous to me.”
Toxicity in the Overwatch community has long been an issue that developer Blizzard has discussed.
